Melancholy for a Chat
by fullmetalfrost
Summary: In which Ladybug's and Chat Noir's encounter with Copycat goes a little differently and Ladybug realizes that Chat's mask is not the only mask he wears. Trigger warnings: Mentions of past suicide attempt, mentions of cutting. Cover image is made by the lovely bloatingcheeseface. UPDATED WITH NEW EDIT


This was bad. Very very bad. Thoughts were jumbling in Adrien's- or more accurately- Chat Noir's head as he raced through Paris, dipping and flipping across both buildings old and new.

Let's get a few facts straight.

Fact number one: he was being chased down by over half of Paris's police force. Okay that was bad enough as it is.

Mentally checking that one off his bucket list, Chat reached fact number two: he was stuck hiding behind a pillar hoping to whatever God is out there that the police helicopters overlooked his, admittedly, not well chosen hiding place…He honestly didn't know how he got himself into these situations.

And this leads us, ladies and gentlemen, to fact number three: Adrien Agreste, AKA, Paris's resident black-clad, pun-making, half of famous superhero duo Ladybug and Chat Noir, had been framed. By himself no less! It really had to be a twist of fate that Chat ended up in this situation. He did realize that this was in some way his fault; he had spurred on the artist that ended up being akumatised because he couldn't quite keep his mouth shut.

 _Your fault._

Chat's words echoed back in his head, creeping up spine and raising the hairs on the back of his neck up. His thoughts… they were more loathing and bitter. They were dripping with spite and malice, but never had anyone but himself. He could never bring himself think about someone like that.

 _Always your fault._

Chat shook his head, blonde locks swiping back and forth over his masked eyes as he pulled them in attempt to suffocate the voice that haunted his mind. It wouldn't do much but maybe, just maybe, it would help him clear his mind. Quickly, he pulled out his staff and tapped the green glowing paw print in hopes of contacting his Lady for assistance. Just as he expected, she answered within seconds, her shining blue hair tied with beautiful red ribbons into her usual pigtails and beautiful blue bell eyes twinkling with what could only be annoyance and exasperation. Chat sighed; he wished those eyes would look at him with more than friendship.

 _Not the time, Chat,_ he mentally berated himself as his lips curled into a small snarl that hopefully Ladybug didn't think was directed at her. He could never concentrate when things really mattered. He'd get distracted and lose focus, and sometimes that ended up getting someone hurt. There was a sharp pang in the center of Chat's chest as he was once again reminded of why his father never bothered to concentrate on him.

 _He doesn't love you. No one does._

Chat snarled and the grip on his staff tightened until his clawed fingers were digging into the palms of his black suit. He was not allowed to think like this. He promised himself he wouldn't relapse. More importantly, he had promised Plagg. If he showed and weakness for even a second, he wasn't sure what he would do. He couldn't go back to the way he was, not again; not after _that._ But the voice was getting stronger, probably more every day. He had thought becoming Chat Noir would alleviate him from his suffering, but he was wrong; it just made it ten times worse.

As his mind wandered he barely registered his Lady's voice calling out for him, bringing him back to reality.

"Chat Noir! What's the situation?" Ladybug asked through her yo-yo's compact communicator. Chat could hear the worry in her voice, the slight high-pitch hitch that was always present when she was anxious. He's making her worry again. Why can't he do anything right?

"You believe me right, My Lady?" He said as he closed in on his own communicator, flirting ever so subtly with Ladybug.

As per usual, Ladybug brushed him off.

"Is this really the time to be making jokes? Where are you?"

Chat didn't bother answering the question. His mind was solely focused on finding the man that chose him of all people to impersonate. Really, the lollipop gave him away and if it wasn't for his obvious burning jealousy for him and Ladybug's "relationship" then he would have felt almost sorry for the guy. _Almost._

 _Your fault._

Hugging the wall a little closer than before, Chat quickly responded.

"I have to quickly find the imposter. I'll call you back," just as he ended the call a helicopter hovered over his position, instantly spotting him. Just his luck. Chat sprang to his feet and dashed away, hopping from building to building in hopes of losing the pesky helicopter.

"Stop right there, Chat Noir!" The speakers roared.

 _Yeah, as if that's ever worked._

Chat made his escape, dashing into a nearby subway entrance, hearing all the police cars crash simultaneously behind him. He quickly detransformed back into his civilian form and walked out the exit, whistling innocently. He found a place to catch his bearings, taking out the lollipop stick he found at the scene of the crime. Determined he set off to find his copycat.

~Line Break~

Chat crouched on top of a building overlooking a seemingly empty warehouse. He was sure this was where Copycat was, he had to be. It was one thing to copy his identity but it was another to frame him and try to steal his Lady away from him. She was the only thing keeping him together.

Against his will, Chat's thoughts once again drifted towards self-loathing. No one ever thought that golden boy, Adrien Agreste was slowly deteriorating from the inside as he destroyed himself from the outside. His life was nowhere near as perfects as others perceived it to be; his father had refused to talk to him much less give him the time of day ever since his mother disappeared. He's never been there for Adrien, not once, instead sending his assistant Nathalie to deal with his "emotional episodes". He forced him to become a model, forced him to learn piano, forced him to fence and without a word he forced him to become someone so unrecognizable that even Adrien himself couldn't see the line between the real him and the fake. He was nothing but a tool for his father to use for his own advantage; that's all he ever was and that's all he'll ever be.

So Adrien decided to become the "perfect son". He became the boy with the sweet smiles that were no more real than the ones he used for the cameras; the shy eyes that pleaded for someone to notice the desperate boy reaching out to his friends for help; the kind hands that no one could ever even fathom the idea of holding a bloodied blade; the same blade that runs sharply across pale thighs, chests, and hips, creating angry red lines that were just deep enough to ease the pain but not nearly enough to end it. He became the son that any father would be proud of.

 _Just not his._

Chat shook his head of the dark thoughts and unconsciously rubbed his wrists under the leather black suit. The pain that flared was a reminder of when Plagg had caught him on one of his worst attempts to harm himself. His father had been disappointed in him, he remembered that, but that wasn't much good; his father was always disappointed in him. Something had happened and they began to fight, and Adrien must have rebelled more than usual or said something that triggered his father, because all at once he had felt a hard slap to his left cheek and a stinging pain the remained even as his tears fell and he raced for him room.

That night he did not hear the heavy footsteps of his father reach his room and his dragged the blade across his skin deeper and harsher than ever before. Not on his thighs or stomach, but on his wrists; somewhere Adrien has never dared touching before in fear of revealing his dark habits. But in the heat of the moment, Adrien did not care. All he saw was red, red, and more red and he wanted _more._ Before he could further damage his wrist with more erratic swipes, Plagg had stopped him, a blur of black that knocked the bloody silver out of his hands and onto the floor beneath Adrien. In all his time with the black Kwami, Adrien had never seen his as livid as he was that day and he never wanted to again.

Chat looked at his wrist, eyeing the leather as if he could see through it and at the faded scar of his past mistakes. He wanted to say he was better, but he knew he wasn't. And every time he looked at his scarred wrist, he remembers _that._ The day he had gone too far.

But Chat had no time to dwell on the past, especially not that particular memory, he needed to focus; Copycat could be anywhere. He placed his hands against the window and looked inside. There were drawings of Ladybug scattered throughout the room with a few of his own littered with scratch marks. This was definitely the place.

"I found you, Copycat." He jumped into the building, surveying the area then quickly took out is staff and called Ladybug. She once again picked up on the first few rings.

"Chat Noir! Where are you now?" She asked, slightly panicked.

"I found him."

"Who?"

"My copycat!" He said, walking to the middle of the room, ready for a confrontation.

"What are you talking about?" Ladybug asked, incredibly confused. What had she missed?

Chat was slowly getting closer, hunched so to not make too much noise and alert his imposter.

"You weren't at the statue event, so you don't know."

Ladybug was getting more agitated. Why couldn't he just tell her where he was?!

"So tell me where you are right now!" She yelled into her yoyo.

Chat noticed a small cat ceramic in the middle of the room, walking up he inspected it.

"No, this is between us; this all happened because of me." _Don't worry, everything is always my fault._ He held back the last part, biting is tongue. He didn't want his Lady to have to worry about his stupid insecurities. She didn't need to deal with him anymore than she already has to.

He hung up and grabbed the paper attached to the ceramic cat, opening it.

"'The cats in the bag'?" Confused, he looked back at the ceramic cat hoping that it held the answers when suddenly he heard the click of a mechanism and chained cuffs attached themselves to his wrists. He pulled experimentally on them but they were too sturdy and tough to break with just his regular strength. He was going to need something a lot stronger. Luckily he has something a lot stronger.

He raised his hand and yelled, "Cataclysm!" but before he could touch the chains binding him with the ancient destructive power, hands wrapped around his wrist and twisted it. Simultaneously, a leg was tucked behind his forcing his center of balance off causing him to come crashing the ground. The sound of his skull banging harshly against the cold floor and the few seconds of sharp pain was enough to disorient Chat and for his attacker to climb on top of him, holding his wrist painfully tight in his identical clawed hand.

"What's wrong, kitty? Cat got your tongue?" The mocking voice of Theo Barbeau- or Copycat- echoed through the warehouse, bouncing off the walls and into Chat's ears. He could do nothing but groan in response.

"What, you have nothing to say? I thought you were all wit and quips, but I see you were nothing but a _fake_." Copycat grinned maliciously and the grip around Chat's wrist tightened a little more.

 _You have no idea._ Chat grimly thought.

Copycat inspected his hand which was still crackling with the unused power of Cataclysm. He twisted Chat's wrist back and forth admiring the black spots that danced off his palm.

"You know I always wondered what would happen if you used Cataclysm on a person." Copycat taunted darkly, his words laced with unspoken threat. His face- or Chat's face at the current moment- twisted into a sick grin as he turned Chat's wrist inward, aiming directly for his chest and more distinctly, his heart. Somewhere behind him, Chat registered the sound of someone landing on the ground softly, but he was far too focused on the black swirls of his bad luck personified to care.

He looked at Copycat who was grinning madly, ready to strike and end the life of his greatest rival for the heart of Ladybug and glanced towards his hand that was positioned mere inches from his chest and he did the only thing he could think of in his situation.

He laughed.

He laughed a cold, manic, hollow laugh and he continued to laugh when Copycat's face shifted from insane glee to terrified confusion. He laughed harder and harder until his chest hurt and Copycat let go of his wrist, backing away, eyes wide and afraid.

And then he stopped. He stopped laughing and pulled his now free knee under him, crouching down like a predator in the second before he rips apart his prey. He stood up and stared Copycat dead in the eyes, a void and bitter glare fixed on the eyes of himself. Slit emerald green met slit emerald green as he slowly brought his right hand back up to his chest and pressed the raw power of Cataclysm against his heart, digging the nails painfully in for extra effect. He thought he heard a gasp behind him but he was too wrapped up in the moment to bother finding the source. He chuckled as Copycat's eyes grew wide and watched him back away until he hit the wall behind him. Chat drew his hand away from his chest and let it drop to his side, smacking uselessly at his thigh as if some invisible strings that held it up were cut. With a strength he didn't even know he possessed he ripped himself free of the chains and slowly advanced towards Copycat. Each step he took resounded and bounced off the walls, making his descent upon his imposter more menacing with each thud of a footstep.

Finally reaching Copycat he chuckled low and ominous. Copycat was desperately trying to make himself as small as possible, shoving his back further into the wall and as far away from the black-clad hero as possible. Chat's hand reached forward, clawed finger tips making their way closer to Copycat's huddled body. Copycat flinched expecting a blow but instead Chat opened the zipper containing the akumatized object and slipped it out. He looked up from the object into Copycat's eyes, wide and terrified. An empty and strained chuckle escaped Chat's throat, almost painful to hear. He gripped the picture of Ladybug, holding it tightly in his hands before leaning down towards Copycat, speaking low and dark,

"That wasn't going to work on me. Trust me, I've tried."

Chat ripped the photo in half in front of Copycat's face, letting the two scraps fall to the floor in front of his feet. A small dark purple butterfly flew out of the picture, circling around the picture uselessly. Copycat- now Theo- fell to the ground in a heap and looked around, confusion written across his face.

"Where am I?" He asked. Chat elected to ignore him as he turned around to leave the warehouse. His job was done; he couldn't care less for Theo much less purifying the akuma. But he wasn't allowed to truly rethink his decision as he turned around to come face to face with the horrified face of Ladybug.

~Line Break~

Ladybug was more than annoyed when Chat rudely hung up on her. They were a team; teams don't ditch their members!

She quickly turned on her tracking device that she and Chat Noir shared and traced him to a nearby warehouse. She leaped in about to kick whoever's butt she needed to in order to save the day.

What she arrived to was something much worse.

When she landed she immediately registered two Chat Noirs on the ground with one straddling the other holding the one under him's wrist, crackling with the energy of Cataclysm, forcing his palm down onto the lower Chat's chest. She seethed instantly. She wasn't sure who was who but she was damn sure that the real Chat Noir would never do something as reckless and irresponsible as this; the top Chat Noir had to be Copycat. She was about to dash between them but the sound of Chat's laughter stopped her.

This was nothing like the flirtatious cheerful laughter she had known Chat to always have. This was something much more hollow and cold. It sent shivers down her spine and the hair on her neck standup. This was not the laugh of Chat Noir and yet it was coming out of his mouth. For a moment, even though it would mean the real Chat Noir would be crossing the line of what they could and couldn't do, she held onto the small hope that maybe the one under the other Chat Noir was Copycat and that she just got it wrong. She could live with Chat being rash and careless; she couldn't live with the thought of this laugh coming out of her normally dorky partner. He was brave and funny- although she would never admit that- and trustworthy; that laugh could not have come from the partner she saved Paris with on countless occasions. It just couldn't.

She watched in horror as Copycat hurriedly shuffled off of Chat and back up fearfully into the wall. Chat got up slowly, raising himself from his prone position on the ground. The hand holding Cataclysm went to his chest and Ladybug wanted to scream. Scream for him to stop; scream to ask what the hell his was thinking touching his body with something that could very well kill him; scream because she wanted answers and she wasn't getting any. But the words stuck in her throat and she was helpless. Truly and utterly helpless as the swirling black power was raised to Chat's heart and pressed against it tightly, sharp nails digging into his leather suit. She couldn't even bring herself to scream but somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks she might have heard a gasp. It must have been her own. Ladybug held her breath, waiting for the inevitable to happen; for Chat to convulse and fall to the floor, or maybe for the power to destroy him for the inside out. Something horrible and terrifying…but nothing happened. Cataclysm dissipated into nothing and Chat was left standing, looking almost…bitter. Chains rattled and Chat ripped them from the ground in a moment of strength Ladybug had no idea her goofy partner even possessed.

She watched as Chat walked over to a cowering Copycat. He took out the picture of her and held it in front of Copycat's face. Before he ripped it, his voice echoed through the warehouse. Chat's voice,

"That wasn't going to work on me. Trust me, I've tried."

Those words chilled her to the bone, sending shockwaves of terror up her spine. She stood completely still; sweat creeping down her spine as the words sunk in.

 _What does he mean, 'Trust me, I've tried'?_

The man possessed by the akuma dropped to the ground and the purple butterfly flew out of the picture but Ladybug was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to really care.

Chat had tried Cataclysm on a human before? But he would never use it on someone, he knows better; he knows what that could do to a person. But then… how does he know it won't work on him? The only way he could possibly know is if he had… tried it… on… himself.

No that was impossible. Chat…he would never. He was always so happy and carefree; someone like that could never have considered…

 _Sometimes the people who smile the most are the most broken._

Her mother told her that once. If she was right, then all those small moments with Chat that she brushed off… they were...? Those smiles he would always throw her way after battle would sometimes be strained. The words he would say would crack slightly. His eyes would darken with something that Ladybug couldn't possibly comprehend. And he would hold his wrist every once in a while like it hurt…

And then it clicked.

Ladybug felt her entire world shatter as she mentally connected the dots. Chat must have tried Cataclysm on himself. He had used a power that he _knew_ would possibly kill him on himself. He did this with the intention that it would kill him. Kill…himself…kill…himself…Suicide.

Chat attempted suicide.

And then Chat turned around and his emerald eyes widened and she saw everything. She saw the desperation, the pain, the loneliness and all the unspoken words that he's ever wanted to say crash down on her and the world she thought could only shatter once shattered once more.

He looked at her and she looked at him and they held each other's stares for what felt like an eternity. And then all too suddenly he turned away from her and looked at the ground, shoulders hunched and head down. She tentatively walked forward a few steps when she heard his breath catch. And the she heard another, and another, and another until he fell to the floor, gasping desperately for air and clawing at his throat. Ladybug panicked as Chat hyperventilated, running over to his side and holding the boy to try and calm him down.

"CHAT! CHAT! Listen to me! B-breathe in. Breathe out." Ladybug said in alarm, trying to keep her voice steady but failing. He didn't seem to be listening, eyes glazed with terror and panic; her words washing of him like white noise. Ladybug took a deep breath and calmed her nerves. She needed to be strong right now. For Chat.

"Please Chat; I need you to listen to me, alright? Breathe in and breath out; slow and steady." Ladybug instructed, keeping control of her own emotions.

Chat followed her instructions, taking a choppy, choking breath and breathing it out, repeating the process over and over until his breathing was stable. Ladybug rubbed her fingers in circles on his back in hopes of soothing him.

"Chat, are you alright?" She asked carefully. She didn't want to upset the boy any further. He took her hand and squeezed it tightly, looking up. Only then did Ladybug notice the fresh tears on his face, making tracks down his cheeks and falling onto the floor in small _plops._

She felt like her heart was being pulled straight out of her body.

"I-I'm alright, M-My Lady; doing just purr-fect." He gave her a shaky grin. Ladybug couldn't believe in a situation like this he could still make puns.

"No, you're not Chat. You're not okay. Don't tell me you're okay when you're suffering so much. Why didn't you ever tell me? You could have… you could have…" She didn't even want to finish the sentence, the words dying in her throat.

"I'm sorry, My Lady. I didn't mean to make you worried; you shouldn't have to deal with this- with me." Chat looked down, refusing to meet her eyes. Ladybug was having none of this. She lifted Chat's chin up lightly, forcing him to look into her eyes. His shone with glossy tears that made Ladybug's heart clench painfully. She was an idiot for never noticing his cries for help, now all she could do was try and pick up the pieces.

"Chat, you are not making me 'deal' with you. You are my partner and I care about you deeply. It's my fault for not noticing the signs sooner I'm just glad you didn't…"

"Kill myself?"

Ladybug flinched at the words being said out loud. The weight of them felt much more heavy and real when said aloud and she could feel the bile rise in the back of her throat when they came of Chat's mouth.

"Yeah… that…listen Chat, I want you to know that you are worth more than you think you are. You cannot be replaced and if you ever think of doing something like…that… I want to make sure that you know to come to me; please don't feel like you have to carry this burden alone. I'll carry it with you; that's what partners are for."

~Line Break~

Chat couldn't even begin to explain how many emotions he felt swirling in head but one main one he could pinpoint would be happiness.

Now that was an emotion he hasn't felt in a while.

He stared at Ladybug after listening to her heartfelt words. He could not comprehend how one person could be so perfect. He felt his eyes begin to heat up and before he could even react he was crying. Hot tears dripped down his face and he touched them, hands coming back wet. Then did something neither he nor Ladybug had expected.

He laughed.

It was neither cold nor hollow but a laugh the Ladybug wanted to hear over and over again forever because it was so beautiful. He laughed and Ladybug laughed with him, both voices joining together in light harmony.

Sometimes mask are not the ones you wear on your face but the ones you wear on your heart. Luckily for Chat, Ladybug always had a habit of working her way in.


End file.
